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Thursday, June 21, 2012

Theology Thursday: Of Parables and Koans

I think of all the new "daily features" topics, this one will be the hardest to gain ground on. I should also take a moment to say in advance what else we have going on throughout the week; "Far Out" Friday (mind-breaking physics of the enlightening variety), Spirituality Saturdays (If Science gets a double-feature, so does faith), and Sizzling Sundays.

This week on sizzling Sunday, I'm going to be doing something inauspicious and skipping it. You see, my birthday is Monday, so on sunday we're going to a steakhouse in the next town over to celebrate. We're going to skip methodological monday to do the sunday feature then, and I'm going to make an old favourite: a real pork Schnitzel.

On the topic at hand, however, I have something less bubbly to say, and it wanders into the usual realm of the hippy-dippy, and I ask it in the form of a question, largely directed at Cam and Paul:

Is there any reason why the koans used by zen instructors to teach their students the proper frame of mind cannot be studied alongside the biblical parables? And, having said that, is there anything to be said about even laymen being able to learn from the Rule of St. Benedict?